Walsenburg’s Fox Theatre rocking into the future

WALSENBURG — The last Friday Art Walk of the season took place on August 26 in La Veta. Here we see local artist Joan Hanley discussing her broad spectrum of art at the Main Street Gallery. Hanley gave a tour of her sculptures from around La Veta and displayed more recent work at the gallery. Photo by Bob Kennemer.

WALSENBURG — If Rock the Fox One was successful, and it was, for both the Fox Theatre and the City of Walsenburg, then Mike Peters and Bo Sewell, who have been working to make the Fox Theatre a place to go for the people of Walsenburg and the county, hope that Rock the Fox Two will focus that success as a way to do business in the future. “We’re looking to have people stop here. This isn’t Boulder, this isn’t Denver, this isn’t Colorado Springs, and we’re not competing with anybody else, ‘cause there is nobody else south of Pueblo,” said Mike Peters in an interview with the World Journal this past weekend. “Bands love playing in places like this, especially because it’s historic.

” The next band booked to play in the intimate venue of the Fox is Black Uhuru, the first Grammy Award winning reggae band. Hailing from Jamaica, the band is currently on an international tour and will be playing at the Fox on Sunday, Sept. 11. The concert will also feature music from Planet O and Onesty, with each group giving their own flavor of reggae to the audience.

Black Uhuru will arrive in Walsenburg following a show in Boulder the night before. After Walsenburg they will head out to Salt Lake City. “This is a big deal,” noted Peters. “It was certainly a choice for them to come here.

It would have been easier for them to go west from Boulder to Salt Lake City, but they decided to head south first. Mainly because they believed in us. ” The theatre has a new dance floor, which was installed with the help of volunteers. This will allow for those who can’t keep their feet still and need to dance to do so during the course of the concert.

This will be the only reggae concert this year. Plans call for more Rock the Fox concerts, with each being a different genre of music. Coming up are genre concerts featuring country artists, blue grass, and jazz. “This is really an effort between myself and Bo Seawell.

He’s given a lot of thought to this,” Peters said. Much of the creative input has come in from Seawell, drummer for Planet O, and booster of the Fox Theatre. “I’ve been wanting to help the Fox Theatre for years,” Seawell told the World Journal in an interview. “We want to rotate the shows so that different tastes are represented.

So every couple of months we have to start the ball rolling. ” Another event at the Fox Theatre is the Thursday evening open mic jams, open to anyone who might want to express themselves musically, from the shower soloist to professionals who want to hear what their compositions sound like in an acoustically built theater. “It’s the raw input that I like,” noted Seawell. One of the historic parts of the theater, “Walsenburg’s Wonderful Wurlitzer” pipe organ, has received its baptism into rock and roll and blues during one of the open mic nights.

Other plans call for the production of plays, creative dance, and possibly poetry jams. The Fox Theatre will still present first release movies on Friday and Saturday evenings, with a matinee on Sundays. But these other activities will allow the theater to present a face to Walsenburg, and eventually to the region as a place to go and see not only good movies, but experience world class performing arts first hand. La Veta artist, Barb Kowalik, won Best of Show at the Spanish Peaks Art Council’s gallery in La Veta this past Friday night as part of the final art walk of the season.

Kowalik is widely known for her unique native American shields.